Humidity

[ourcozycoop]

hey everyone

We recently purchased a small incubator able to hold and hatch 9 eggs at a time. It has a fan and temp control. I bought a humidor (?) but am having a hard time holding the proper humidity. It’s either too high or too low. Any tips! Hind sight. I should have purchased one with temp and humidity control.

* I am doing a test run before actual incubation of the eggs.

The incubators info

Egg incubator
Model: JANOEL12

Picture

 

[Ridgerunner]

Can you please give us a link to that make and model so we know what incubator you are talking about?

 

[ourcozycoop]

Can you please give us a link to that make and model so we know what incubator you are talking about?

Oh jeez! Added the info!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'm not familiar with that make or model and cannot find the operating manual or the photos I need online. My first suggestion is to contact the manufacturer and talk to them about it.

http://www.poultryaustralia.com.au/janoel-model-12-egg-incubator-for-sale

It sounds like there are different water reservoirs in the base. You adjust humidity by filling certain ones and not filling others. What controls humidity is the surface area, not the depth of water in the reservoirs. The more surface area, the more water evaporates, the higher the humidity. If you accidentally spill water and get other areas wet the humidity will spike until that area dries up. So give it time to stabilize.

One way to increase surface area is to put sponges or a cloth with part of it in the reservoir so it soaks up water and gets wet. To reduce humidity you can cover part of a reservoir with something like aluminium foil to reduce surface area. I don't know if you can do that with that model.

 

[ourcozycoop]

I'm not familiar with that make or model and cannot find the operating manual or the photos I need online. My first suggestion is to contact the manufacturer and talk to them about it.

http://www.poultryaustralia.com.au/janoel-model-12-egg-incubator-for-sale

It sounds like there are different water reservoirs in the base. You adjust humidity by filling certain ones and not filling others. What controls humidity is the surface area, not the depth of water in the reservoirs. The more surface area, the more water evaporates, the higher the humidity. If you accidentally spill water and get other areas wet the humidity will spike until that area dries up. So give it time to stabilize.

One way to increase surface area is to put sponges or a cloth with part of it in the reservoir so it soaks up water and gets wet. To reduce humidity you can cover part of a reservoir with something like aluminium foil to reduce surface area. I don't know if you can do that with that model.

 

[ourcozycoop]

Thank you very much!! This helped tremendously. I went through several various sized tupperware lids with water after reading your reply until I found the one that was the adequate surface area size for the amount of humidity attempting to maintain (50-55%)The moment I read your reply it all made sense!! Thank you again

 

[WVduckchick]

Thank you very much!! This helped tremendously. I went through several various sized tupperware lids with water after reading your reply until I found the one that was the adequate surface area size for the amount of humidity attempting to maintain (50-55%)The moment I read your reply it all made sense!! Thank you again

Whereabouts are you located? 50-55% may be the recommended humidity for that incubator, but for many of us, that is way too high.
I hope you will read this article and consider adjusting it, if necessary.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/incubation-humidity.73386/

 

[ourcozycoop]

Great read! Thank you
We are in ontario. Our homes heating/cooling system maintains us at 55% RH. SO during my trail runs I am simply attempting to maintain a level of humidity prior to actually incubating our eggs. I did know prior to reading the many factors. For example it has taken me 9 days to establish a good clutch of eggs. Which is ideal for the air cell. However our eggs are very thick large eggs (chickens). Once I do place the eggs I plan on holding a level of 40% until day 17-18 in which I will raise it to 65%. I knew upon reading the directions of incubation for the incubator we purchased that it was too high. They also included 3 stages of humidity during the incubation process of a chicken (week 1- 50-50% week 2 35-45% then week 3 65-75%) which all seems too durastic for my likings...I am also finding that I am needing to increase the actual temperature in order to hold and maintain 38C. For instances when set to 38C we are holding at 37.4C but when set at 38.5C I am holding 38C, loosing 2 degrees upon a quick open.

So break down of my plan

Set and maintain 40% & 38C
Place eggs and set for 7 days
(I will check for fertility at day 7)

Day 14- check progress

Day 17-18 I will increase huumidity too 65% maintaining heat just the same.

My only other problem I think is the turner. I do not feel we are getting much movement from the turner it’s self. I know this as I placed a false egg in for 2 days to watch movement. So I do plan on manually turning my eggs at least once- twice a day until day 17-18 when I remove the turning tray and leave them to hatch.

Sound ok?

I do not plan on placing eggs until I am 100% on what I am doing. So no worries everyone

OH. For info sake my eggs are from my Lovily Buff Lavender Orpingtons.

My next go will be our sassy little Red Old English Bantams (I expect this will vary from the hatching of a standard chicken egg as they are much smaller and thinner eggs)

 

[WVduckchick]

Great read! Thank you
We are in ontario. Our homes heating/cooling system maintains us at 55% RH. SO during my trail runs I am simply attempting to maintain a level of humidity prior to actually incubating our eggs. I did know prior to reading the many factors. For example it has taken me 9 days to establish a good clutch of eggs. Which is ideal for the air cell. However our eggs are very thick large eggs (chickens). Once I do place the eggs I plan on holding a level of 40% until day 17-18 in which I will raise it to 65%. I knew upon reading the directions of incubation for the incubator we purchased that it was too high. They also included 3 stages of humidity during the incubation process of a chicken (week 1- 50-50% week 2 35-45% then week 3 65-75%) which all seems too durastic for my likings...I am also finding that I am needing to increase the actual temperature in order to hold and maintain 38C. For instances when set to 38C we are holding at 37.4C but when set at 38.5C I am holding 38C, loosing 2 degrees upon a quick open.

So break down of my plan

Set and maintain 40% & 38C
Place eggs and set for 7 days
(I will check for fertility at day 7)

Day 14- check progress

Day 17-18 I will increase huumidity too 65% maintaining heat just the same.

My only other problem I think is the turner. I do not feel we are getting much movement from the turner it’s self. I know this as I placed a false egg in for 2 days to watch movement. So I do plan on manually turning my eggs at least once- twice a day until day 17-18 when I remove the turning tray and leave them to hatch.

Sound ok?

I do not plan on placing eggs until I am 100% on what I am doing. So no worries everyone

OH. For info sake my eggs are from my Lovily Buff Lavender Orpingtons.

My next go will be our sassy little Red Old English Bantams (I expect this will vary from the hatching of a standard chicken egg as they are much smaller and thinner eggs)

Sounds like a plan!
Hand turning is fine, the more turns, the better. The necessary part is to NOT let them spend a great deal more time on one side or the other. Even it out as best as possible. People say an odd number because usually overnight is the longest, so turning only twice leaves them on the same side every night. But I sleep less than I'm gone for work! lol I turn them 3-4 times personally.

Buff lavenders? Got any pics?
I used to breed lavender orpingtons. One tidbit I will share about their eggs specifically, my lav's were bad about starting to zip and stopping mid-zip and dying. Or zipping without totally detaching the shell, and getting stuck. I saved many a lavender orpington chick by just popping off the shell, once it got mostly finished by itself. I'm not sure why that breed seemed to do it, but watch for it, just in case.

And for the light color of their shells, they were much harder to candle than expected. I could tell growth in many of my eggs within 4-5 days, but I'd leave lav orp eggs to at least day 8-9 before I was comfortable calling them infertile.

 

[ourcozycoop]

Sounds like a plan!
Hand turning is fine, the more turns, the better. The necessary part is to NOT let them spend a great deal more time on one side or the other. Even it out as best as possible. People say an odd number because usually overnight is the longest, so turning only twice leaves them on the same side every night. But I sleep less than I'm gone for work! lol I turn them 3-4 times personally.

Buff lavenders? Got any pics?
I used to breed lavender orpingtons. One tidbit I will share about their eggs specifically, my lav's were bad about starting to zip and stopping mid-zip and dying. Or zipping without totally detaching the shell, and getting stuck. I saved many a lavender orpington chick by just popping off the shell, once it got mostly finished by itself. I'm not sure why that breed seemed to do it, but watch for it, just in case.

And for the light color of their shells, they were much harder to candle than expected. I could tell growth in many of my eggs within 4-5 days, but I'd leave lav orp eggs to at least day 8-9 before I was comfortable calling them infertile.

That’s good to know! I’ll keep a watch for that. I’ve spent several weeks leading up to this prepping myself for all the possible things that could go wrong (thanks to a brama bantam chick that fell during an egg check...this was a young hen hatch where she kept finding herself too excited resulting in rolled out eggs)...*still feeling guilty over it as it was my fault, placed it down on the table to check movement and the thing rolled right off the table..I’ve since then purchased a candler.

As for the turning I will plan to use the turner but add a manual turn turning 3x by hand a day.

I find the lavenders very shy but the most consistent box layers out of all our girls. They free range so we often find our other hens eggs in hiding spots.

Here’s acouple pictures